{ "viewingDirection": "left-to-right", "metadata": [ { "label": "Origin", "value": "Late 14th century and the first half of the 15th century. England, perhaps East Anglia.

Calendar principally Sarum with variations pointing to East Anglia: Winwaloe, Withburga (3, 16 March), translation of Edmund, in red (28 April), Radegund (13 Aug.); also Dominic (5 Aug.). <\/p>

Binski and Zutshi (2011), no. 221<\/div><\/div>
" }, { "label": "Origin Place", "value": "England, perhaps East Anglia." }, { "label": "Provenance", "value": "

'Sir William Howheton': name inscribed on f. 14v<\/a> (not noted by Binski and Zutshi), perhaps a member of the Hoghton family of Lancashire. There were two Sir William Hoghtons. Judging by the style of handwriting, the first is probably too early, having predeceased his father Sir Richard Hoghton (c. 1342-c. 1422). The second, Sir William Hoghton (d. 1501), seems a more likely match. In the calendar, neither 'pape' (Gregory, f. 3v, glossed by a late 15th- / 16th-century hand 'ver', for 'vere'? ('truly'); Stephen, Sixtus, f. 8v; Marcus, f. 10v; Silvester, f. 12v) nor entries for the feast (f. 12v) and translation of St Thomas Becket (f. 7v) have been erased. This suggests that the manuscript remained in recusant hands during the 16th century, which would tally with continued ownership by the Hoghton family. <\/p>" }, { "label": "Extent", "value": "Codex: iii + 118 + iii leaves. Leaf height: 190 mm, width: 125-35 mm." }, { "label": "Funding", "value": "Wellcome" }, { "label": "Date of Creation", "value": "Late 14th century and the first half of the 15th century." }, { "label": "Classmark", "value": "Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.6.29" }, { "label": "Additions", "value": "

Quire signatures ('1-16') in the bottom right-hand corner of the recto side of the first leaf of each quire, and '+' in the same position on the first leaf after the centre of the quire, written in pencil by one or more hands of the 19th/20th century. Another hand has added quire signatures ('a-k') for Quires 5-14. <\/p>

Classmark on front pastedown<\/a>, notes about a missing leaf on ff. 58v<\/a> and 101v<\/a>, and a collation formula on the rear pastedown<\/a>, all written in pencil by the hand of H.L. Pink, c. 1958.<\/p>" }, { "label": "Subject(s)", "value": "Medicine, Medieval; Astrology; Astronomy; Urine--Analysis; Phlebotomy" }, { "label": "Associated Name(s)", "value": "Pink, H. L.; Moore, John, 1646-1714; Pine, John, 1690-1756; George I, King of Great Britain, 1660-1727; Tanner, Thomas, 1674-1735" }, { "label": "Format", "value": "Codex" }, { "label": "Data Source(s)", "value": "This catalogue entry draws on the description provided by Paul Binski and Patrick Zutshi, with the collaboration of Stella Panayotova, Western Illuminated Manuscripts: A Catalogue of the Collection in Cambridge University Library<\/i> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) (used here by kind permission of Cambridge University Press); and an unpublished description of the manuscript composed between 1926 and 1930 by M.R. James, now held in the University Archives (UA ULIB 7/3/74<\/a>)." }, { "label": "Language(s)", "value": "Latin and Middle English (dialect of ff. 110r-118v) supposedly Herefordshire (LALME)" }, { "label": "Binding", "value": "

Binding by J.P. Gray and son of Cambridge, dated 1958 by a note on the front pastedown<\/a>. Millboard quarter binding with marbled paper covering and brown leather spine. The title and classmark are tooled in gold on the spine. <\/p>" }, { "label": "Script", "value": "

Several hands were involved in copying the contents of this manuscript, however each scribe's work was confined to his own section; none of them is found elsewhere in the volume. The description of these hands and the scripts that they used follows the division of the manuscript into four codicological units (as given in Collation). <\/p>

Folio 1r: Labels accompanying Zodiac Man copied in Anglicana<\/i>. <\/p><\/div>

Folio 1v: Lunar table copied in Anglicana Formata<\/i>. <\/p><\/div>

Unit 1: Calendar copied in Textura<\/i>, with the headings in accompanying tables copied by another hand in Anglicana Formata<\/i>. <\/p><\/div>

Unit 2: Recipes for gilding and colouring (ff. 17r-18v) copied in Anglicana<\/i>; the table of contents for the later recipe compilation (ff. 20r-25r) copied by another hand in Textura<\/i>. <\/p><\/div>

Unit 3: Uroscopy texts copied in Anglicana Formata<\/i> by a single hand. <\/p><\/div>

Unit 4: Collection of medical recipes and charms copied in Textura Quadrata<\/i> by a single hand. <\/p><\/div>

Unit 5: Uroscopy texts copied in Anglicana Formata<\/i> by a single hand. <\/p><\/div><\/div>" }, { "label": "Physical Location", "value": "Cambridge University Library" }, { "label": "Abstract", "value": "

This medical compilation was copied by several hands in the first half of the 15th century. Aside from a single leaf at the beginning and at the end, the manuscript appears to fall into five groups of quires. Each scribe's work was confined to his own section; none of them is found elsewhere in the volume. In Quires 1-2 and Quire 3, more than one hand was involved in the copying. The manner in which the leaves were prepared for writing varies, as does the choice of script, and each section is set apart from the others by what would have originally been blank spaces and/or pages: f. 16v<\/a> after the perpetual calendar and tables, ff. 25r-25v<\/a> after the table of contents, f. 33v<\/a> after the uroscopy texts, and ff. 106v-109v<\/a> after the medical recipes. The inclusion in the Calendar (ff. 2v-13r<\/a>) of Winwaloe and Withburga (3 and 6 March) and the translation of St Edmund in red (28 April) points to a possible East Anglian origin, while the scribal dialect of the treatises on urines (ff. 110r-124v<\/a>) is apparently Herefordshire (though this is not necessarily indicative of place of origin). <\/p>

This evidence might cumulatively indicate that the manuscript is a composite, each part being of separate origin. On the other hand, the intellectual coherence of the volume's medical contents could also suggest that the manufacture of these 'codicological units' had been co-ordinated in some way, even if only loosely. This hypothesis is supported by the presence in one section of a table of contents (ff. 20r-25r<\/a>) that refers to a collection of medical recipes and charms found in another (ff. 34r-106v<\/a>). Although they were copied by different hands, the table must have been written specifically for this manuscript, since it directs the reader via rubricated page numbers that could only have been established after the recipe collection had been copied. The single largest unit in the manuscript is that occupied by this collection. It is composed almost entirely in Middle English, with some passages in Latin, and the recipes are arranged in a rough head-to-toe order. In both its contents and arrangement it closely resembles recipe collections found in a handful of other manuscripts in Cambridge (see the introduction to Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 95<\/a> for links and further discussion). The formality of its production - frames and lines ruled neatly in brown ink, the text copied in a textura script of consistent quality, and the presence of decorated initials - all point to commercial manufacture, as in the case of Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 9308<\/a>. The temptation is thus to propose that this was made first, or was at least the unit around which the other components coalesced. <\/p>

Reconstructing the order of production definitively may never be possible, but the other contents of the manuscript were certainly complementary. Sections both before and after the recipe collection are dedicated to various treatises on urine and its analysis for the purpose of diagnosing diseases. The first of these (ff. 26r-30r<\/a>) describes the different colours of urine by analogy - 'white as water is clear', 'yellow as honey', 'red as right red blood' or (worst of all) 'black as coal' - before explaining what these indicate about a person's digestion, and how the four layers of urine relate to four areas of the body. Summative paragraphs are accompanied in the margins by coloured urine flasks, though the colours do not reliably correspond to the text, and there are thirteen more flasks than the 'xx colours of urines' the treatise announces in its opening line. It also differs from other 'twenty colours' treatises in describing some of these colours as being like yellow or red cloth. After the recipe collection comes a treatise on the 'regions' of urine that may be connected with the next text, a Middle English translation of Walter Agilon's Commentarium urinarum<\/i>. It too contains textual variations, to such a degree that it may be a witness (albeit incomplete) to a third vernacular version of Agilon's treatise. There is plentiful evidence of use in the manuscript, with 15th-century hands quickly filling the blank spaces and margins with various medical recipes and charms, a herbal glossary and a prayer to the Virgin Mary. <\/p>

At first glance, a Calendar (ff. 2v-13r<\/a>) might seem out of place in such a manuscript. It lists saints' days and religious festivals, the Dominical Letters and Golden Numbers (for calculating when Sundays and the date of Easter fall), as is typical - but on either side is accompanied by extensive tables of figures for astrological calculations. The single leaves that frame the contents of the volume, far from being peripheral, similarly confirm the connection in the late medieval period between medical practice and astrology: a Zodiac Man for guiding the timing of interventions such as bloodletting according to the position of the Moon relative to constellations (f. 1r<\/a>), a lunar table (f. 1v<\/a>), and a table of eclipses for 1406-1443 (ff. 126r-126v<\/a>). Such astrological material is frequently found in combination with diagnostic uroscopic diagrams in the folding almanacs that were being produced around the same time. Their presentation here not only illustrates the transmission of this information in a different format. The translation of urine treatises into the vernacular enabled more people to access elements of a learned medicine that had previously been the preserve of educated physicians, while the inclusion of collections of recipes illustrated the integration of experience-based or 'empirical' remedies into broader astrological-medical practice. <\/p>

The owners of such a volume must nevertheless have been not only of sufficient means to commission its production or purchase it second-hand, but also learned enough to understand various contents written in Latin. A hitherto unrecorded clue as to their identity is on f. 14v, where the name 'Sir William Howheton' has been inscribed. This suggests the Hoghton family of Lancashire. There were two Sir William Hoghtons. Judging by the style of handwriting, the first is probably too early, having predeceased his father Sir Richard Hoghton (c. 1342-c. 1422). The second Sir William (d. 1501) seems a more likely match. It is notable that in the Calendar neither 'pape' nor the entries for the feast or translation of Thomas Becket have been erased. This suggests that the manuscript remained in recusant hands during the 16th century, which would tally with continued ownership by members of the Hoghton family. <\/p>

Dr James Freeman
Medieval Manuscripts Specialist
Cambridge University Library<\/p>" }, { "label": "Former Owner(s)", "value": "Hoghton, Sir William, -1501" }, { "label": "Title", "value": "Medical miscellany" }, { "label": "Author(s) of the Record", "value": "Tuija Ainonen, Project Cataloguer, Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries. Expanded and corrected, with revised introduction, additional notes on the calendar and Howheton/Hoghton provenance, and details relating to added recipes: Dr James Freeman, Medieval Manuscripts Specialist, Cambridge University Library (2025)" }, { "label": "Material", "value": "Parchment" }, { "label": "Collation", "value": "

The manuscript comprises five codicological units, plus a single leaf at each end of the volume (ff. 1 and 126), as follows (and see Summary for further discussion):